Trish and Dave's Awesome Adventure

This is a great time of year in my opinion.  We're deep into summer where everyone's had the opportunity to sink into it and take a big bite.  This time of year some start complaining of the heat and you start seeing the back to school specials.  For me, I want time to literally stand still...preferably at a moment when I'm on a beach looking out at the Atlantic with a cooler by my side.  The sleepy summer month of August will be here momentarily and I am savoring as much of summer as I can.  Actually, we both are...so while we have some good wine posts coming up we wanted to share with you some of what's been keeping us from blogging:

First, we had to celebrate the 4th of July (Dave chose to do this with a little too much bourbon, preventing us from attending the infamous Bristol RI 4th of July parade the next morning)Luckily there was a cookout at his parent's fabulous waterfront home to distract me.

In New England, summer means seafood...any time of year means seafood really.  Dave and I are both huge fans of a good raw bar and there are some great local oysters to be had in these parts.  We took a trip (the first for both of us) down to Matunuck Oyster Bar  (www.rhodyoysters.com) to taste their variety of locally sourced crustaceans.  It just so happened East Matunuck Beach was around the corner and it was yet another beautiful beach day.  After we stuffed ourselves with oysters, Sauvignon Blanc and fried clams we meandered on down to sit it off in our beach chairs :)

There's a great little getaway just an hour's ferry ride from Point Judith here in RI, and it's called Block Island.  It's one of my favorite places on earth and is home to about 1,000 people year round.  The island measures approximately 10 square miles in area but don't let it's size fool you!  This island is stuffed with many beautiful beaches, cliffs, houses and tons of great places to eat shop and drink.  Sign me up!  We took a trip with our mothers this past Saturday and made the most of a day on the Block.

Oh yeah...we did attend another fine tasting put on by Eno Fine Wines and the Providence Wine Academy.  Here's a little pictorial preview until Dave and I get our act together enough to post about the favorites we tried.  Happy drinking!

We hope you're enjoying your summer as much as we are ours.  Cheers!

Dave and Trish

Summer Corn and Tomato Salad with a side of Sancerre

By now you all know how much David loves his French wine, with Sancerre ranking amongst his favorites.  Also, any of you ladies who have been indulging in a little Fifty Shades this summer should recognize this wine as well.  This is a white from the Loire Valley in France known for it's sauvignon blanc wines.  To be clear, sauvignon blanc is the grape, Sancerre is the region and it's the region, with it's soil and climate, that gives it the nice little spin separating it from the rest of the world's sauvignon blanc wines.  There's great balance to this wine and you'll get subtle notes of fruit, floral and mineral from it.

Because the flavors in this wine are more shy than outgoing it has a reputation for being very food friendly and is a great pairing with some of summer's best fresh vegetables.  I picked up locally sourced Point Judith sea scallops at Dave's Market the other night and needed a nice side to go with it that was both light and flavorful.  Lucky for me the farm stand near my house had some corn ready due to a great early growing season.  I selected some lovely looking cherry tomatoes from the same stand and headed on home to create a delicious summer meal.

This was a throw together meal as I didn't really have a set plan in my head...I just started cooking and whatever came of it was what it was.  I halved the cherry tomatoes and cut the corn from the cob, tossed it with some red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, salt, petter and parsley along with some finely diced shallots.  You could grill the corn before adding it to give it a nice smoky flavor.  Toss this all together and even add some cubed ciabatta bread for a summer panzanella if you so fancy.

The scallops I seasoned with salt and pepper and then seared them on both sides in olive oil with a squeeze of fresh lemon.  I felt like they needed a little something extra so I reduced down some balsamic vinegar with agave nectar, a natural sweetener I've been into lately, and drizzled it right over them.

What should you expect to pay for this Sancerre I speak of you ask?  Well, Dave's favorite is the Lucien Crochet and you can get it for around $35, nothing earth shattering.  For about $22 you can pick up the 2010 Joseph Mellot, a less expensive bottle that's on our list to try.  Put a nice chill on it and enjoy!

Cheers,
Trish and Dave